Tipping point (sociology)

In sociology, a tipping point is a point in time when a group—or a large number of group members—rapidly and dramatically changes its behavior by widely adopting a previously rare practice.

The phrase was first used in sociology by Morton Grodzins when he adopted the phrase from physics where it referred to the adding a small amount of weight to a balanced object until the additional weight caused the object to suddenly and completely topple, or tip. Grodzins studied integrating American neighborhoods in the early 1960s. He discovered that most of the white families remained in the neighborhood as long as the comparative number of black families remained very small. But, at a certain point, when "one too many" black families arrived, the remaining white families would move out en masse in a process known as white flight. He called that moment the "tipping point".

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The phrase has extended beyond its original meaning and been applied to any process in which, beyond a certain point, the rate of the process increases dramatically. It has been applied in many fields, from economics to human ecology[1] to epidemiology. It can also be compared to phase transition in physics or the propagation of populations in an unbalanced ecosystem.

Journalists and academics have applied the phrase to dramatic changes in governments, such as during the Arab Spring.[2] The concept of a tipping point is described in an article in an academic journal, the Journal of Democracy, titled "China at the Tipping Point?: Foreseeing the unForeseeable":

Regime transitions belong to that paradoxical class of events which are inevitable but not predictable. Other examples are bank runs, currency inflations, strikes, migrations, riots, and revolutions. In retrospect, such events are explainable, even overdetermined. In prospect, however, their timing and character are impossible to anticipate. Such events seem to come closer and closer but do not occur, even when all the conditions are ripe—until suddenly they do.[3]

Tipping point is not the only phrase from physics that has been in other fields as a metaphor for human behavior. Critical mass from nuclear physics is another.